J. Michael Andresen

Again, don't forget to enter the 2009 Prognostication Quiz ! As an added enticement, I forgot to say that there will be a prize to the winner! In keeping with tradition started at Eric's party a year ago, the winner will receive a deluxe themed gift bag. Send in your answers now before you forget! Katie and I have service for ten with the china pattern we chose for our wedding. We had registered for 12, though, and have recently decided to acquire the two extra place settings before the pattern is discontinued. The cheapest way to get the china is to go on eBay. Katie found an auction that had our pattern, the Lenox "Vintage Jewel". Unexpectedly, it was also the angriest eBay posting I had ever come across: I really don’t want to part with my beautiful Lenox china, but divorce is forcing my hand. This China has NEVER BEEN USED. It sat in a hutch for a year. Then I found out my husband had a major spending problem, $90,000 in debt, 50k of that in CREDIT CARD DEBT. I w

First, if you haven't already sent in your answers, please participate in the 2009 Prognostication Quiz . It's lots of fun! Over the weekend, Katie and I went to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Walker Art Center to see an exhibit on Eero Saarinen , a famous Finnish-American architect. I found out about the exhibit shortly after I returned from my August trip to Boston. While there, I went to see a show in Kresge Auditorium . Kresge is a fun building because the roof is an eighth sphere, supported primarily on three points: I'm sure I'd heard the architect's name at some point in my undergraduate years, but I knew that I had long since forgotten it. Jan was quick to respond, though. He knew it was Eero Saarinen, who also designed the MIT chapel. I was highly impressed! The cover article of the next issue of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts magazine announced this big Eero Saarinen exhibit that would be split between the two local art galleries. Funny! A

The 2008 Prognostication Quiz was a big success, with 27 entrants battling it out over the year. Matthew B. was our big winner. Sadly, I ended up dead last, the only entrant who couldn't even get two answers correct. I will try to improve on that this year. The quiz is open to anyone and everyone! I keep people updated throughout the year as each event unfolds. It's lots of fun! Added 12/31/08: There will be a prize "gift bag" for the winner! Originally given out by Katie and me to the game winners at Eric's party on 12/31/07, these popular bags of goodies are well worth playing for! Enter now! 2009 Prognostication Quiz Deadline for entries: 12 p.m. on January 10, 2008. Send answers to jmandresen at gmail. (Send 14 answers A to F plus one tiebreaker.) 1. Freedom (January) Freedom House is an international organization that studies democracy and freedom in the world, publishing an annual report on how many of the world’s nations are free, partly free, or not free.

A couple days before Christmas, Katie and I took our relationship to a new level. There's one particular nighttime activity that I find immensely pleasurable. I was always too bashful to ask Katie what I really wanted to do with her, though. Why did I change my mind and finally ask Katie? I guess because we have been married for a year and a half now, and to tell the truth, our usual nighttime activities were getting a bit stale. (I knew that Katie agreed with me on that point, as we have openly talked about that part.) Also, I figured that Katie might be in a more generous mood since it's so close to Christmas. I set the mood very carefully. I started by surprising Katie with a romantic home-cooked dinner when she got home from work. Then I steeled my nerves, swallowed the big lump in my throat, and tentatively propositioned her over the pork tenderloin. She blushed mildly and smiled, pausing just a second or two before softly answering, "Yes." It was truly incredibl

Reasons I believe the man that Katie and I saw across the street today was in fact Kris Kringle a.k.a. Santa Claus: 1. He was very old. 2. He had a long, snowy white beard. I didn't get a picture, but I swear it looked exactly like this: 3. Neither Katie nor I had ever seen him in the neighborhood ever before. 4. He had Santa-like generosity. When we first saw him, he was shoveling the sidewalk to of the house across the street and just to the right. We know all of the occupants of that house, and none of them fit the description in #2 above. Christmas is a time when some people have family members (perhaps elderly bearded parents or grandparents) visiting. He blew that theory when he finished the one sidewalk and moved on to the next house! He shoveled that walk and then moved on to a third house! Katie and I were actually getting excited at this point that we might get our walk shoveled for free. (I had not yet gotten to shoveling out from under yesterday's storm.) Sadly, a

I've waited and waited, but I just don't think we're going to have another hurricane. The hurricane season ended on November 30, but I still held out hope. It was quite a teaser when Paloma turned into a hurricane the first week of last month. That was the eighth of the season. One more hurricane would have meant that I would not end up alone at the bottom of my first annual quiz. That ninth hurricane was not forthcoming. I must finally admit defeat. The answer to question 11 is C. Eleven people predicted this: Matthew B., Sandy, Pete, Megan, Jodene, Jeremiah, Laura, Beth Z., Liz, Jorge, and Rachel. The eight hurricanes settles two of the intra-relationship grudge matches. With that final extra point, Liz passes Jeff (3 to 2), and Megan passes Rob (4 to 3). (Katie was already going to beat me 2 to 1, Ryan had already squeaked ahead of Heather on a better tiebreak, and Jodene completely thrashed Oraldo 4 to 2.) This, then, is likely to be the final top of the leaderboard: 1.

Michael: Sometimes I feel like a cocaine addict. I like to take 100 mg of caffeine in the afternoon, but my pills are 200 mg. That means I need to split them. I typically split a pill on the counter with my pocketknife. I put one half pill back in the bottle and swallow the other half with water. But there's a fine white powder left on the counter from the cutting procedure. I wipe it up with a finger and then lick the finger. Can't let any coke go to waste! Katie: Coke and caffeine are certainly similar. :) Michael: Maybe someday I'll upgrade from my pocketknife and the counter to a straight-edge razor blade and a pocket mirror and really freak people out. Katie: Does anyone ever see you? Michael: Not usually. I am known as "the pill guy" though, for my proliferation of Coenzyme Q10, fish oil, multivitamins, ibuprofen, and caffeine bottles. Katie: People say "the pill guy"? Sad! Michael: Every now and again someone will happen upon me downing some pills

I was going through some old files the other day and found this interesting image, from the famous series of advertisements for Absolut Vodka: I've written recently about being a Scrabble nut. This image appealed to me for that reason when I cut it out of a magazine in college. It is sadly clear, however, that the designers of the ad perhaps knew the rules of the game, but were not true Scrabble nuts. Can you find the two places where an illegal word must have been played in order to create this game board? I'll leave the answer in the comments.

Katie and I stopped by to see Liz, Jeff, Maria, and David for breakfast on Saturday morning. Maria was in top form. She decided at one point that she wanted to go swimming. Jeff enthusiastically (and over Liz's halfhearted objections) set up the wading pool in the living room: You will notice that Maria very carefully put on her rain boots first, so that her feet would not get wet. She was so concerned about Jeff getting his feet wet that she demanded that he put his boots on, too. Jeff instead took off his shoes and socks and rolled up his pant legs before getting in. This appeased her: Another kid-friendly activity we did with Maria was decorating Christmas cookies. Some friends of Liz and Jeff made them a very generous gift of a few dozen undecorated cookies along with three colors of icing all ready to go in individual squeeze bottles. Liz and Jeff took turns helping Maria frost the cookies. Katie conversed with whichever parent was not decorating with Maria. I, on the other ha

It's not often you get to tell a fun story about projectile vomiting. Katie's friend Heidi and her two kids Madeleine (age 10) and Ethan (age 6) were over to visit yesterday. At one point while the adults were talking, Madeleine and Ethan were playing an odd game. Madeleine would recite the alphabet and in between each letter, Ethan would belch. He kept the belching going by periodically taking large gulps from a can of diet root beer. I noticed the children playing this odd game and pointed it out to Katie and Heidi. Enjoying the attention, perhaps, they continued three times through the alphabet. They had gotten to "Q" on their fourth time through when Ethan suddenly erupted: a long, perfectly cylindrical column of brownish liquid exploded from his mouth and violently smacked Madeleine across the face. No one was harmed, though, and the efflux seemed to be over 99% defizzed diet soda with no remnants of lunch. The adults tried to be somewhat stern so as not to encou

Katie and I had a heated discussion the night before last. We were sitting on the couch watching Jon Stewart when she noticed a large, apparently cancerous growth sticking out of the bottom of my foot. She asked what the big lump in my sock was. "That's my toe," I responded, nonplussed. I had crossed my first and second toes, causing a lump to protrude from the bottom of my sock. Katie was quite alarmed. "You can cross your toes?" "Sure, can't you? Everyone can cross their toes!" "Of course I can't cross my toes. Who can cross their toes?" And I confirmed that Katie could not, in fact, cross her toes. Even manipulating her toes with my fingers, I could not get her toes to stay crossed. She just has very short toes. That led, of course, into a discussion of who was the freak. Were my long, crossable toes abnormal, or were her stubby, uncrossable phalanges the outliers? In case you're confused, here are some pictures. First, of my v

On Saturday, Katie went to a girls-only social event. My initial plan involved working on manuscript review that is due this week. When the time rolled around, however, I felt more like a glass of scotch and a movie. After being ridiculed by Rachel in the comments of a prior post for not having seen Jaws , I decided to give that movie priority on my to-see list. I greatly enjoyed the movie. It was well made. I particularly enjoyed the score by John Williams and how the Jaws theme "snuck up" in the music when the shark was stealthily approaching. My favorite bit of score was actually an eerie use of silence, when the shark made an dive carrying three buoys, which everyone thought would be impossible. The frightening realization that this was a powerful shark coincided with that eerie silence to great effect. After finishing Jaws , I was surfing channels and doing a crossword puzzle while waiting for Katie to return from her unigender activities. I happened upon Ace Ventura: P

Katie's parents were kind enough to invite my immediate family over to their house in Hudson for Thanksgiving dinner this year. We had a lovely dinner for ten: Tom, June, and Laura from Katie's immediate family plus Ila Kay, her cousin once removed; Cherie, Missy, Tina, and Jeremiah from my immediate family. Katie's family (mostly June) made a turkey, turkey gravy, two kinds of stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, rosted cauliflower, cranberry sauce, and two relish trays. Katie made a green salad. My sisters brought rolls. Jeremiah was asked to bring sparkling cider but went shopping too late to get into a grocery store and brought sparkling wine instead. Mom enjoyed that. Meanwhile, I just showed up and ate. That's my favorite. Sadly, I forgot to bring my camera. I often have plans to bring it along but then fail to follow through. (I find I forget things more often the older and more decrepit I become.) I was inspired at one point to take o

Our dishwasher stopped working last week. The indicator light was not on, and the dishwasher would not start. I set aside a few hours on Saturday to frustrate myself before calling a professional repairman today. Of course I started by turning off electricity to the dishwasher. This was a little complicated, because I didn't know which circuit controls the dishwasher. The normal thing to do is to flip each circuit breaker off one by one until the dishwasher turns off. Since the dishwasher wasn't working, though, I had no easy way to test which circuit was supplying power. I ended up adopting a conservative route and switching the two circuit breakers controlling the outlets in the kitchen and the garbage disposal right next to the dishwasher. I didn't know which, but I knew that one of those two would kill power to the dishwasher. I put on my incredibly-dorky-yet-quite-helpful halogen headlamp and got down on hands and knees to take off the bottom panel. Within 90 seconds,

This is a hilarious YouTube clip, from a blog called Fail Blog . Thanks to Rachel for the pointer! The blog is really, really funny. This is a related clip from the same blog, involving tubing through the streets in the aftermath of Hurricane Fay. It reminds me of going ice skating through the streets of Dayton, Minnesota one day during my elementary school years when we had enough freezing rain to coat the road with a thick layer of ice:

Reuben Smeed (1909-1976) was a British statistician who analyzed how bombing patterns during World War II affected the likelihood of being shot down. After the war he studied traffic patterns and made a discovery that I find quite amazing. Smeed discovered that the number of traffic fatalities in a given region depends on two things: the number of people and the number of cars. The fatality rate is not influenced by improvements in automobile safety or by what traffic laws are put in place. Smeed's Law asserts that the number of deaths is governed by this equation, where D is deaths, n is number of cars, and p is the number of people: This law has held true since the start of the 20th century, when automobiles had no seat belts or safety glass. It is true (or within a factor of two) during any time period in nearly all countries studied carefully. How can that make sense? Smeed suggested that inherent aspects of human psychology regulate the death rate in a way that does not depe

I alluded to Katie's wonderful smile yesterday, but it's really only so captivating when she is distracted or caught unawares. When a camera is knowingly pointed at her and she is asked to smile, her facial muscles (the zygomaticus muscles in particular, which pull up the corners of the mouth) have major dysregulatory issues. Sometimes they are hyperactive, giving the deranged toothy grin that graces many of our wedding photos: Sometimes they are hypoactive, giving a sullen scowl. An example from last year, when we went out to dinner with friends Eric and Sarah before taking in a show: I took 2 pictures to be sure to have one that turned out well. Perhaps I should have taken 20. Notice the lovely smiles on Eric and Sara, while Katie looks like she's swallowed a lemon!

I'm looking forward to the first big winter storm. We've had a few flurries and dustings of snow that last a day or two, but nothing big. To whet my appetite, here are some videos from a family sledding trip from last December. It was a beautiful snowy day on Christmas, and we went sledding and then horsed around in a playground. Here's Tina sledding down and making a perfect beeline for Jeremiah. He parries her thrust by adroitly leaping over her. Here's Katie trying desperately to sled down the hill but instead sledding right in front of me (on the side of the hill). Close-up at the end of her stunningly beautiful smile. Could I have helped falling in love with a face so winsome? (Also visible in the photo above!) Here's Jeremiah trying to give Missy an extra push down the hill but instead flipping her over. RATING: PG-13 for subsequent language. Here's Katie and me on separate sleds but holding hands. When we get to the bottom, the camera crew directs us to k

I have been seriously swamped and falling behind in my goal of three posts per week. I will try to catch up forthwith! For my last post, I was doing a little bit of procrastinating while slogging through some writing that needed doing for work. (I really hate writing at work, which might be a surprising revelation given that I voluntarily write in my free time as a hobby blogger. The difference is that when I'm blogging I get to use fun words like "forthwith", but acceptable science writing is very dense and precise which makes it very dry. In blogging, I get to use synonyms if I'm talking about the same thing for a few paragraphs. In science writing, it's expected that you use the same term as many times as you need to: the most accurate term must be the best term, no matter how redundant or boring it makes the text sound.) My usual place to go is to watch the previous night's episode of The Daily Show, but Katie and I have been doing a good job of late watch

Barack Obama has prevailed in his bid for the White House. This has seemed likely for some time, but was a bold call back in December. Yet, 8 of the 27 entrants picked him on question 10 of the 2008 Prognostication Quiz . (I was one of the 12 people who picked Hilary Clinton to prevail.) The early Obamaniacs were Jeremiah, Laura, Pete, Tina, Ryan, Eric, Jodene, and Rob. While Obama's win was easily predicted since the last Quiz update , we have had a much bigger development on another front. The Economist has finally published its latest democracy index report . That means that we will have an answer to question one after all. I had given up on the democracy index report being published at all this year. Here are the bottom five from the previous report: North Korea 1.03 Central African Republic 1.61 Chad 1.65 Togo 1.75 Myanmar (Burma) 1.77 Here is the summary of the best and worst democracies as of September, according to The Economist : As you see, three countries (North Korea,

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I had family dinner last night at my sisters' house. Jeremiah made a lovely meat loaf with garlicky mashed potatoes. I brought a salad (spinach, craisins, blue cheese dressing). Jeremiah also procured dessert but then left it at home. Initially Katie didn't think she could join us because of the amount of work she needed to get done, but she was able to come late. Jeremiah went to buy a cake in lieu of the other dessert while we waited for Katie. Missy, Tina, Mom, and I played a dominoes variant (quadrominoes) while we waited for Katie and Jeremiah. It was all a bit frenetic but quite fun. (Mom even won the quadrominoes game! Huntington's disease has not robbed her of mental toughness! Tina was going to take a picture of the game for blogging purposes, but she demurred in the end, so embarrassed was she to have lost.) After we all reassembled, we rooted for the teams we had chosen in episodes 3 and 4 of The Amazing Race. Sadly, Tina's pick of Mark and Bill made a criti

Ekrem sent me email today with a link to an xkcd comic: This comic reminded him of me, presumably not only because I'm a Scrabble nut (to the point where I have memorized all the legal two-letter words, but not yet to the point where I have memorized all the three-letter words), but also because my sense of humor tends to the Andy Kaufman-esque style of challenging propriety in conversation and other social interactions. I would be playing CLITORIS with great alacrity. The comic has an additional clever bit in that if you mouse over the image on the xkcd web page, it delivers an additional note: "A veteran Scrabble player will spot the OSTRICH option." This is true, but while CLITORIS would score 64 points (including the double-letter scores and the bonus for playing all the tiles), OSTRICH would score a measly 10 points. That's unacceptable to a veteran Scrabble player. Thankfully, our suffering protagonist actually has two other options that garner the 50-point bon

I wrote for the student newspaper when I was an undergrad at MIT. I joined because I thought it was a travesty for a school newspaper not to report on all of the arts events that the good student body was generating. I joined the newspaper for my senior year in order to rectify this situation. In my tenure, I covered a wide variety of MIT events: Musical Theater Guild Jesus Christ Superstar Company The Apple Tree Guys and Dolls West Side Story Dramashop The Winter's Tale Six Characters in Search of an Author Shakespeare Company Romeo and Juliet Gilbert & Sullivan Players Pirates of Penzance Chorallaries Better Late Than Never Concert in Bad Taste Next Act Kiss Me Kate One Victor H. was a member of both the Chorallaries (an a capella vocal group) as well as Next Act (a musical show put on by one of the dorms). I didn't know Victor when we were both undergrads, but we ended up being in the same class in grad school at Berkeley and became good friends. It was in retrospective

I've been watching a lot of television lately. Most of all, I've been watching the Red Sox during the playoffs. Sadly, they are now on the brink of elimination. I'll probably still watch a lot of the World Series, but it's not as much fun without the Red Sox. Katie sometimes watches baseball with me (or reads a magazine while I watch), but Jon Stewart is the main show we watch together. We've even been to see him live recently. Most of our friends seem to like Steven Colbert better, but we enjoy how Stewart injects a lot more of his (liberal) politics into the show than Colbert, who offers more unthinking (though still quite funny) satire. Last night, our friends Christy and Gabe threw a huge party to watch the finale of Project Runway . I knew nothing about the show but knew plenty about the soirees that Gabe and Christy throw. The champagne was flowing freely and compensated for the fact that I didn't really know what was going on. Katie and I feel a little

I love making lists of things to do and then working away at them. I am in the process of finalizing my list of books that I want to read (now expanded from simply 20th century English novels), but my list of movies is set. There are five ways to get onto my "to see" list: 1. Win an Oscar for Best Picture (starting in 1928) 2. Be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar (starting in 1944) 3. Win an Oscar for screenwriting (starting in 1927) 4. Be on the top 100 list for top grossing films of all time (inflation-adjusted) 5. Be on the American Film Institute top 100 list . That leads to a list of 498 films, of which I have just recently passed the halfway point. (I have seen 250 of the films. Katie has seen 175.) I've listed them all below! K=Katie, M=Michael, nom=nominated for best picture, WIN=best picture winner, Wr=screenwriting winner, AFI=top 100 films, ##=rank on the list of all-time inflation-adjusted ticket gross. K M Year Title Pict Wr AFI Gr y y 2008 Dark Knight,